Alternative Title
Paper No. 9.16 L
Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Date
12 Mar 1998, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Abstract
In June of 1994 a 20-m section of 1.4-m diameter, restrained-joint, ductile iron pipe failed during construction of a new section of water pipeline for the city of Cairo in the Arab Republic of Egypt. The failure occurred in an area where the pipe was supported on piles, and compacted silica sand was used as side support for the pipe. Soil above the crown of the failed section of pipe was 6 m or more in thickness. Results of a detailed review of the failure revealed that a number of unique and related factors apparently caused the failure. The most significant of these causes was the native soil surrounding the pipeline, which was formed from an accumulation of 800 years of building and construction debris. At the location of the failure the debris was in excess of 15-m thick. When subjected to water at this location, this debris underwent significant settlement, which eventually led to loss in side support for the pipeline. To repair the pipeline and to avoid future similar failures, a utilidor was used to protect the pipeline in areas where overburden thickness was greater than 4.5 m, and a pipe encasement was used where the overburden thickness was less.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
4th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 1998 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Anderson, D. G.; Sundberg, C. C.; and Robertson, R. J., "Failure of a Pipeline in an 800-year Old Debris Fill" (1998). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 5.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/4icchge/4icchge-session09/5
Failure of a Pipeline in an 800-year Old Debris Fill
St. Louis, Missouri
In June of 1994 a 20-m section of 1.4-m diameter, restrained-joint, ductile iron pipe failed during construction of a new section of water pipeline for the city of Cairo in the Arab Republic of Egypt. The failure occurred in an area where the pipe was supported on piles, and compacted silica sand was used as side support for the pipe. Soil above the crown of the failed section of pipe was 6 m or more in thickness. Results of a detailed review of the failure revealed that a number of unique and related factors apparently caused the failure. The most significant of these causes was the native soil surrounding the pipeline, which was formed from an accumulation of 800 years of building and construction debris. At the location of the failure the debris was in excess of 15-m thick. When subjected to water at this location, this debris underwent significant settlement, which eventually led to loss in side support for the pipeline. To repair the pipeline and to avoid future similar failures, a utilidor was used to protect the pipeline in areas where overburden thickness was greater than 4.5 m, and a pipe encasement was used where the overburden thickness was less.
